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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26752291">Hell Is What You Make Of It</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowhere_dawn_death_phan/pseuds/nowhere_dawn_death_phan'>nowhere_dawn_death_phan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Torchwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Post Reset, Pre Dead Man Walking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:21:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26752291</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowhere_dawn_death_phan/pseuds/nowhere_dawn_death_phan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Death is not something Owen Harper has ever been afraid of. Once it’s over then it’s over, and that’s all there is to it. Or at least, that’s what he thought. Turns out, there are some things that even death can’t kill. And they’re not happy with him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Owen Harper/Katie Russell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hell Is What You Make Of It</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Owen Harper’s first coherent thought was that death was dark. His second thought was of surprise, and his third was surprise at the fact he was surprised - was there really some part of him deep down that had been expecting pearly gates and angels with trumpets? Granted, in a scenario in which the idea of Heaven had any actual basis, he’d always assumed he’d find himself a little bit deeper down than that. Piousness on earth could only result in what he’d imagine would make for a very boring afterlife, and he’d always preferred being too hot to being too cold anyway. Not that that seemed to matter much now, unless this was Purgatory, in which case it might be an important point to bring up in the meeting with his maker that he had a feeling would be coming up fairly soon.<br/>For the moment though, regardless of what horrors or delights were waiting for him ahead, death was dark. Dark and hard to describe. He was aware of his consciousness to an extent, he could think, he could remember, but he couldn’t move. He didn’t have a body. He was aware of there being space around him, but it didn’t feel like physical space. It felt like being half-asleep, like when you’re awake but you haven’t quite realised it yet, with the only difference being that he had realised. It was smothering, oppressive. He could feel it bearing down upon him, the weight of oblivion choking his lifeless spirit. All in all though, non-existence was far more appealing than he’d thought it would be.<br/>He had no idea how long he existed in that space, waiting for something to happen. He wasn’t scared. There was nothing to be scared of. The dark wouldn’t last, he knew that. Eventually something new would come. And if it didn’t, maybe he’d be able to find some semblance of peace in his undoing. The peace was perhaps the most unsettling part of it all. It brought with it the sensation of drowning, of being trapped, like it was an order.<em> You will feel at peace here, you do not have a choice</em>. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt before, he couldn’t describe it. Like everything else here, it merely <em>was</em>.</p><p>And then something did happen, a slight flicker of something at the edge of wherever it was. He tried to look at it, but it disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived. It had only been a flicker though, nothing more than that. Owen had allowed himself a moment of hope at the sight of it, but that hope was sinking now. It had likely been nothing, the random misfire of his last few neurons before his brain shut down. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made as an excuse, but he wasn’t in the mood to think about what else it might have been, so that’s what he kept telling himself it was. Until it happened again, and then for a third time, and then a fourth.<br/>It would appear, a shimmer, a spark, and he would glance across at it and it would wink out of existence as if it couldn’t bear to be seen by him.<br/>It irked him. It was so close but yet so far out of reach. He couldn’t move towards where it was. It wasn’t anywhere. He wasn’t anywhere. He didn’t know what it was, if it was the key to moving on or if it was just nothing. Something about it, the way it flickered in and out of existence, reminded him of what Jack had once said about the invisible lift, that it doesn’t really register, like something in the corner of your eye. Owen remembered learning that the human eye is instinctively drawn to movement and when the thing darted back into his vision he picked a spot in the darkness where his feet would have been if he’d still had a body, and he stared at it.</p><p>He let the thing come closer to him, let it drift as though on some nonexistent breeze. He saw it vaguely in the edge of his vision. A spark that became a haze that began to slowly take form. Owen resisted the urge to glance up at it, to see what it truly was. He didn’t want to lose it while it was so near, even closing what used to be his eyes to make sure he didn’t accidentally look at it too directly. He wondered what it was, aside from royally testing his patience. If this was what it took to get into Heaven then once again Owen found himself considering popping in the suggestion to be sent a little bit deeper. Patience may have been a virtue but it was never one that he’d possessed.</p><p>There was a sound then, the first sound he’d heard since dying. The clearing of a throat, like somebody who’s sick of being ignored. It took Owen a second to realise that he hadn’t actually heard the sound, or at least, not in the way that he was used to. That made sense, really, he supposed. No body, no ears, no way to process sound, so why would he expect it to happen the way that it had before? It felt like it was coming from inside his head, like the thought was being sent directly to whatever part of his consciousness was still clinging onto however much of him was left. He recognised it somehow, he was sure he did. It had been some part of his life once, this strange flickering thing, he just couldn’t remember exactly what.<br/>“Owen.”<br/>He stiffened at the voice. He did recognise it. He knew who it was and it didn’t make sense but then again nothing did anymore, and if he really was dead then why wouldn’t they be here. The tone was as teasing as he remembered, as if this had all been one big inside joke and they’d been in cahoots the entire time.<br/>He opened his eyes, and at his feet in front of him were two trainers, white and slightly scuffed, the laces undone and trailing somehow on the floor, though there wasn’t a floor. There wasn’t anything, but here was someone, standing in front of him like everything was fine. He looked the figure up and down carefully, from the trainers to the trousers and up to the jacket, half unzipped and the drawstrings uneven. Then up to the face, the dark blonde hair and reassuring smile, the blue eyes that he’d fallen in love with all those years ago, and if Owen Harper still had the ability to, he knew that he’d nearly be crying.<br/>“Katie?”</p><p>She smiled at him, and just for a moment that smile made him forget that everything had gone wrong. There was something so exact, so perfect about her as she stood in front of him that it didn’t seem real somehow. Of course it wasn’t real, the thought came to him with a jarring sense of certainty, how could it be real? He was a rational man, a man of science. That was what he’d said before that idiot had blown a hole in his heart. <em>We’re both rational men, scientists</em>. And as a rational man of science, he couldn’t believe this. Not because he didn’t want to. By god he did, he wanted to believe it more than he’d ever wanted to believe anything, but because he just couldn’t. It didn’t make sense.<br/>It didn’t make sense why she would be here, now, of all places, of all times. Why she was looking at him like that, as if she hadn’t seen him for a lifetime. Why she seemed so perfect, so exact and precise. Too precise. She was too much like Katie, too similar to the thing he’d once loved. It came off like a cheap imitation, like someone was putting too much effort into playing a poorly created part. It couldn’t be her. He wouldn’t let it be. This was a dream, or a trick, or some desperate creation of his own mind struggling to find comfort in the fact that he was dying.<br/>Maybe it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe the bullet had pierced his flesh but he wasn’t quite dead. Maybe all of this was playing out over the course of a single second, his brain protecting him from the reality of his situation as he fought to comprehend his own mortality. Maybe in a moment all of this would disappear and take him with it. That sounded nice. He thinks he wants that.</p><p>Then Katie reached out a hand, a solid, real hand, the only real thing in this world of nothing, and held it against where his chest would be if he still had one. Her hand curled around what he vaguely thought to be the collar of a shirt he once wore. He could almost feel the weight of her hand against him, so intensely was he concentrating on her every move. Maybe she is real, he thought. Maybe, even if she’s not, just for a moment he could pretend.<br/>“I trusted you.” Katie pulled him nearer, and it was a strange sensation, the bottom of his stomach dropping away, like he was being dragged through existence without ever actually taking a step. Her tone turned hollow, her expression dull. She was flat, the fraudulent copy of someone he once loved.<br/>“I trusted you.” She repeated, three small words that seemed to grate at Owen’s soul, piercing at some small agony that he had no idea still existed, that he thought he’d left to wilt and die all those years ago. “And you chose her.”<br/>The darkness got more oppressive, it covered Katie in its inky blackness, closing in around them both. He didn’t understand for a moment, and then she made a casual gesture with her hand, like she was winding a scarf around his neck, and he realised.<br/>Diane.</p><p>“No.” Owen shook his head, or as close as he could get to it. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t choose her over you.”<br/>The darkness surged forwards, enveloping Katie completely and Owen tried to stumble backwards but he didn’t have a body to control and even if he did, there was nowhere for him to go. Still her voice came at him out of the darkness, as empty and mechanical as if she was reading from a prompt card. “You would have ended the world for her. You tried to end the world for her.”<br/>“It wasn’t just for her. It was for Rhys, and Lisa, it was for everyone. Everyone that the Rift had ever taken from the world. Including you. I did everything that I could for you, you know I did. But the Rift couldn’t bring you back, Katie. You were beyond saving.”<br/>It occurred to Owen in that moment that maybe this was Hell, maybe this was how he was going to have to spend eternity. So close to the one that he needed but so far away, lost in an endless darkness, reasoning with something that no longer had the capacity to feel. He knew with a dreadful sort of aching certainty that there was nothing that he could say that would change her mind. She wasn’t his Katie. Regardless of whether she was some divine punishment, a manifestation of his own inner guilt or just an image the darkness had invented to pull him in, it didn’t matter because she wasn’t real, and the idea of spending eternity with her harsh accusations ringing endlessly in his ears made him want to curl into a ball and scream until there was nothing left.</p><p>But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t stay here in this Hellish darkness with his demons breathing down his neck forever. He couldn’t. Something would have to change eventually, some shift and grind in fate would bring him something else. He just had to grin and bear it for now, and maybe over time her words would hurt less until they meant nothing, and when she’d served her purpose she’d be replaced by somebody else. Another life that he let down, another person he couldn’t save, and they’d torture him and torture him before they too found their place in his history, because there was always people that he couldn’t save, there would always be somebody that he’d let down. Suzie Costello, Lizzie Lewis, Ed Morgan, John Tucker, Jasmine Pearce, Lisa Hallet, Diane Holmes, Mark Lynch, his mother, Katie.<br/>His final thought was that it would be okay. He would force things to be okay. That they were together again now, the two of them, him and Katie. That whatever had happened before didn’t matter now, because he was here. He wasn’t going to lie back and let it eat away at his soul forever. He was here and he was going to fix it, he was going to make things right, whatever it took to do it.<br/>And then Owen Harper woke up.</p>
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